US F1 close to collapse

US F1 is on the brink of collapse, having failed to raise the required funds to compete in this year’s Formula One championship.

The American team’s chances of making it onto the grid at Bahrain in two weeks' time have been questioned for several months, and the BBC claims that its chief backer, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, will switch his funding to fellow newcomer Campos Meta.

Hurley is US F1’s chief backer, but the team is believed to have underestimated how much funding was required on making it onto the grid.

US F1's co-founders, Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor, have yet to comment on the reports. The pair have already confirmed that the team has asked the FIA for permission to miss the first four races of the season, but this is unlikely to have been granted as it breaches the Concorde Agreement signed by US F1 and F1’s other 12 teams.

Argentine Jose Maria Lopez is the only driver signed by US F1 and he is set to follow Hurley to Campos to become Bruno Senna’s team-mate.

Campos team principal Colin Kolles has confirmed the team will make the grid in Bahrain, despite having not tested its car. F1’s other new teams, Lotus and Virgin, have completed extensive pre-season testing.

Serbian team Stefan GP, which plans to race using the chassis Toyota developed for this year before pulling out, is hopeful of inheriting US F1’s place on the grid should the American team pull out as expected.

Support for USF1 was probably based on some kind of FIA and Bernie desire to make the yanks like F1. The lack of US sponsorship for this team says it all about how they see the sport, so they should all give up on the American dream.

You would get more success from a start up from either Russia or India as they seem happy to chuck loads of money at F1. As far as the Serbian lot go, they may get lucky and being ex Toyota they may get lucky with a few points but it would never last as next year they would have to design and engineer it themselves and I cannot see the attraction for leading British, German and Italian engineers going to live in Serbia, and they dont have the natural talent there. Why do you think an Indian, Austrian and Malaysian team are all based in the UK?

Those who followed American Champ cars from the 80's and 90's will remember the dominant Penske team had their engineering base and factory in Portsmouth UK, and over the years many IRL and Indycars have either been Dallara (Italian)or Reynard (British), neither American!